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Does early entrance to center-based childcare alter children’s intestinal microbiota? |
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1 Introduction
Research Question
- Does entrance to center-based childcare at three months of age alter gut microbiota composition?
Motivation
Gut microbial composition plays an important role in physical and mental health.
- Animal studies suggest:
- a sensitive period in early life with regard to the influence of microbes on the host.
- that early life stress disrupts the gut microbial ecosystem with negative health consequences.
- a sensitive period in early life with regard to the influence of microbes on the host.
Entering center-based childcare can be considered an early life stressor in humans that leads to prolonged increases in cortisol levels as compared to care in the home environment.
Contribution
- To gain insight into environmental factors that might influence the early development of the gut microbiome.
2 Data and Methods
Research Design
- Longitudinal study (BIBO Study)
- Two groups: Childcare (n = 49) vs Home (n = 49)
- Microbiota sampling pre- and 4 weeks post entrance into childcare (Home group had similar age and sampling time points).
Data
- Microbial determination at genus like level with the Human Intestinal Tract Chip (HITChip)
- Data was treated as compositional (centered-log-ratio-transformation)
- Covariates: Breastfeeding (average feedings/day) and age
Statistical Analyses:
- PCA (Aitchison distance)
- PERMANOVA (Aitchison distance)
- Hierarchical Linear Mixed Models (Gaussian family)
- Bayesian Hierarchical Generalized Linear Models (Generalized normal distribution)
- Random Forest Classification
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                                           3 Results: Aitchison distance between samples for Childcare (A1, A3) and Home (A2). Alpha diversity between groups (B)
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3 Results (continued)
- no effect of childcare entrance on overall composition (A1-A3).
- breastfeeding and age explain 3.5% of variation in overall composition.
- slight decrease in alpha diversity in the childcare group (B).
- significant differences in relative abundances between Childcare and Home after controlling for age and breastfeeding (red taxa in A1 - A3 indicate absolute log fold change \(\geq\) 0.2 \(\leq\) 1).
- High individual variation: Many infants showed an opposite trend compared to the average effect with regard to relative abundances and alpha diversity (see paths in B).
4 Conclusion
- Childcare entrance did not lead to a uniform change in gut microbiota composition.
- Changes in microbiota composition between the time points were highly individual and driven by factors not captured in this study.
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